Gentry, a graduate of Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), will display her math puzzle-solving skills next to similarly impressive super-humans and compete for a prize of $100,000. She will solve a puzzle that she hopes will sell mathematics to an audience and to explain why she finds math so compelling.

This week, ERGOT Faculty Dr. Tanjala Purnell-Idowu and Bloomberg Distinguished Professor Dr. Lisa Angeline Cooper launched a new course in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, “Applications of Innovative Methods in Health Equity Research.” The course involved an amazing team of faculty members, including ERGOT Faculty Dr. Macey Henderson and several faculty members from the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity. Students (from all over the world) were very enthusiastic and actively engaged in the course and learned about novel methods, practical tools, and skills required to conduct health equity research and to translate evidence-based strategies into practice and policy.

We are proud to support Dr. Purnell and her ongoing work addressing health equity.

We were excited for the opportunity to present our work at the first ever Hopkins Surgery Research Day (May 24, 2017)! We brought 12 posters and gave 2 talks.

Congrats to our Research Data Analyst Mary Grace Bowring for her award winning poster on Sex and Size Disparity in Liver Transplant!

Core Faculty member and 2015 Rothman Early Career Development Award for Surgical Science award winner Dr. Tanjala Purnell gave an update on her ongoing research titled, “Patient Centered Research to Improve Equity in Access to Kidney Transplantation.”

Another highlight was our Halsted resident and PhD candidate Dr. Sandra DiBrito sharing her research in general surgery and transplantation, titled, “Outcomes Following General Surgery in Kidney Transplant Recipients.”

Thank you to the Johns Hopkins Department of Surgery for facilitating a great day of sharing engaging surgical science!

Tanjala Purnell, PhD, MPH, was recently appointed to a 3-year term as the new Region 2 Representative to the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) / United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) Minority Affairs Committee. The OPTN/UNOS is a public-private partnership that links all professionals involved in the U.S. donation and transplantation system to develop national organ transplantation policy. In this role, she will provide insights from her research findings to inform policy development, research and data analysis, and educational and informational projects to promote equity in access to transplantation in the United States. She will also communicate her committee’s activities to medical professionals, transplant recipients, and donor families in Region 2 (including MD, DE, NJ, PA, WV, and D.C.) and gather input to make certain that members of this region have an opportunity to voice their concerns and opinions.​ Congratulations, Tanjala!​

On episode 54 of The Gifted Life Podcast, we are talking about new HOPE, namely the HOPE Act. The HOPE Act, enacted into law in 2013, paves the way for people living with HIV to become organ donors to potential recipients living with HIV. Dr. Christine Durand chats with our hosts about HOPE in Action, a research study piloted out of John Hopkins University that puts the HOPE Act into practice and is saving more lives. We then welcome in studio guest Dorian Gray Alexander. Dorian hosts a radio show, Proof Positive, is an advocate for the HIV+ community, and a member of a popular male dance group in New Orleans called the 610 Stompers. He talks with hosts about the implications of the HOPE Act and even teaches them some dance move during a break! We honor Hero Anthony Eichmann, talk about getting ready for National Blue and Green Day, and run into a two-time Superbowl champ with the Giants, who’s raising awareness about the need for more registered organ, eye & tissue donors. Don’t miss this action packed episode of The Gifted Life Podcast.

ERGOT Faculty, Macey Henderson, JD PhD, was elected to a 3-year term on the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) Board of Directors. Henderson will serve as a Patient and Donors Affairs Representative. The Board of Directors is the governing body that oversees and participates in developing policies for operating the OPTN that provide equitable organ allocation to patients registered on the national waiting list, ensure quality standards for membership, and establish data submission requirements. Currently, the same board that serves the OPTN also serves the United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), the organization that holds the contract to operate the OPTN.

In a time of greatest tragedy, this donor family made a powerful decision to save the lives people waiting on a transplant. That decision was generous and compassionate. Registered organ donors, and their families, are the people who make organ donation and transplantation possible. With the hard work of our colleagues at Emory and Lifelink, the HOPE Act will save hundreds–even thousands–of lives over the next decade through safe HIV-HIV kidney and liver transplantation.

We hope that other people living with HIV will be inspired by the compassion of this organ donor and donor family, and register their decision to save lives at registerme.org.

We’re honored that these donors and families have made the decision to save lives through organ donation under the HOPE in Action study. With hard work and collaboration between Johns Hopkins, our transplant center partners, and organ procurement organizations across the country, in 2016 we were able to help 20 patients with HIV live fuller, longer, healthier lives after receiving HOPE transplants.
Our research indicates that thousands of lives could be saved by HOPE transplants in the next decade – both those with and without HIV infection who are waiting on the same transplant lists in need of a life-saving transplant. That is a powerful and lasting legacy, and we hope it provides these special donor families some small measure of comfort as they mourn the loss of loved ones.
Every day, when we walk into Johns Hopkins to serve patients and advance the field of transplantation, we are inspired to do our best by the generous patients, donors and families who make our research possible.
With continued hard work by our whole team at Hopkins and beyond, we hope to honor these amazing donors, donor families, and HOPE transplant recipients. We look forward to saving many more lives in 2017 and beyond through safe, legal HIV-HIV organ donation and transplantation under the HOPE Act.